tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5842932455093396534.post8050820337308623408..comments2023-10-11T05:53:28.724-06:00Comments on Diary of a Daoist Hermit: The Beginings of a Theory of QiThe Cloudwalking Owlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12753861683491740903noreply@blogger.comBlogger11125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5842932455093396534.post-60848996242578954322013-12-27T02:10:58.845-06:002013-12-27T02:10:58.845-06:00For the first time in many years of looking at stu...For the first time in many years of looking at stuff and trying to separate the charlatans from the guys talking sensible stuff, I seem to have found somebody that makes sense to me at this moment. Thank you.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5842932455093396534.post-5661584660912507662012-02-01T20:44:32.341-06:002012-02-01T20:44:32.341-06:00Jarad:
A couple points.
First, not to cast any ...Jarad:<br /><br />A couple points. <br /><br />First, not to cast any sort of doubt on your Uncle, but medical science is not a cut-and-dried thing. Sometimes people get diagnosed with diseases that they just don't have. I read a semi-autobiographical book by a Chinese writer who'd been diagnosed with late stage lung cancer. Later he found out that the doctor had misread his x-ray and he only had a mild case of something like pneumonia. (He only found out after he had radically changed his life expecting to die soon.)<br /><br />Even if you Uncle did have a "terminal illness", there are always "out-liers" who are capable of doing things that ordinary members of the public cannot. Doctors really don't know enough about the body to make completely accurate prognoses----but they have to anyway. The result is a certain number of "miracles". <br /><br />None of this weakens my key point, however. Even if it is possible for people to <b><i>theoretically</i></b> cure themselves through meditation, the fact of the matter is that the overwhelming majority lack the will power to do this.<br /><br />In the same way, rates of lung cancer would be much, much less if people stopped smoking. But they still do, no matter how much doctors warn people about this.<br /><br />There was a story that my first meditation teacher taught me. A student was bragging to another that his master could write on a sheet of paper that someone held up on another side of a wide river. The second one said that that was nothing---his master was able to eat only when he was hungry!<br /><br />To my way of thinking, the job of spiritual practice is learn how to have self-discipline, not to learn how to do magic tricks. So I side with the second student's teacher not the first one's. (But the students shouldn't have been bragging anyway---.)<br /><br />It might well be that there are people who can heal themselves with Qi. But the overwhelming majority of people I've met who teach this stuff seem to be simply either self-deluded or else they are trying to delude others for some sort of ulterior motive. <br /><br />My teacher was thought to be an amazing guy with all sorts of incredible knowledge about Qi. But he was sick a lot and died of chicken pox in his early sixties. What does that say? That he didn't know what he was talking about? That he gave up all his Qi and sacrificed himself for the institution that he built? That he lived far longer than he would have if he hadn't devoted his life to studying Qi? <br /><br />You pays your money, you makes your choices-----.The Cloudwalking Owlhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12753861683491740903noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5842932455093396534.post-46137059732578466602012-02-01T05:36:30.799-06:002012-02-01T05:36:30.799-06:00Hi again,
I am surprised at your response re the...Hi again,<br /><br />I am surprised at your response re the Tibetan Monks.<br />You make some good points but are drawing some bows there.<br /><br />My Uncle was given an early life expectancy. He decided to live using meditation etc to override the health condition he had and was called a living miracle. He had 3 children built his own house and sailed a little boat around the world.<br />He also took laughter clinics in cancer wards, taught meditation and counseled clients and helped people in their own healing.<br />Once he had the use of a hospitals biofeed back machines.<br />He could get more oxygen into his body using meditation than he could get via the oxygen machine. He kept detailed records of this and showed the head doctor. This Doctor was not interested. Like you he<br />thought that simple meditative practices too difficult?<br />Yet these practices could save the health system millions because people take their health into their own hands and use calmness and breath to build it rather than expecting "science" and doctors to fix things all the time.<br />Open to the wonders of the impossible!!! It happens all the time!!!<br /><br />All the best <br />JaradJaradhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07554788909269193326noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5842932455093396534.post-74398712326064725232012-01-20T00:05:07.854-06:002012-01-20T00:05:07.854-06:00Jarad:
Good to hear from you. Sorry to take so l...Jarad:<br /><br />Good to hear from you. Sorry to take so long to respond, but I've been busy lately----.<br /><br />With regard to the Tibetan lamas who can heat up their bodies. <br /><br />First, I believe absolutely nothing that I read in the popular media about scientific issues. Journalists are not in the business of education, but rather entertainment. They have no interest at all in trying to figure out whether or not an entertaining story is actually true or not.<br /><br />Secondly, if the monks are indeed able to dry off clothes on their bodies all this proves is that they have some sort of control over their bodies that most people do not. This doesn't mean that we need to accept their interpretation of what this implies about how the universe functions. <br /><br />To illustrate this point, consider the example of fire walking. For centuries people thought that fire walking indicated some sort of amazing control over the body. It turns out that what it really involves is the difference between how hot something is versus how conductive it is. Anyone who understand the physics can easily fire walk.<br /><br />Another thing to consider. People who believe in the existence of God tend to invoke him when something is not understood. This is called in Philosophy the "God of the gaps" (i.e. the "gaps" in our knowledge.) For example, before evolution was understood, people said that the only explanation for the complexity of the body was through some sort of divine "watch maker". Just because we don't understand what these monks may be doing doesn't mean that we have found evidence of "qi".<br /><br />Finally, the person doing the research says that the meditation of these monks holds promise of helping many people who suffer from stress. Think about how much effort these monks have put into learning their specific practice. What are the chances that this could be widely taught to the general public?<br /><br />Doctors could help innummerable people if they could get them to stop smoking, eat sensibly and exercise. Yet this level of self-discipline is beyond the vast majority of people. Any system of meditation like these monks follow would be far harder to follow. <br /><br />Doesn't that make the practice fundamentally worthless as something to help people? <br /><br />This stuff just leaves me cold. My taijiquan teacher once said that it is important to understand what is important and what is just "circus tricks". What these monks are doing, IMHO, is at best a circus trick. At worst, it is some form of chicanery aimed at sucking in the gullible.The Cloudwalking Owlhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12753861683491740903noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5842932455093396534.post-16819716474135602562012-01-19T04:48:19.848-06:002012-01-19T04:48:19.848-06:00Hello, I am curious to here what your take is on t...Hello, I am curious to here what your take is on this?<br /><br />http://news.harvard.edu/gazette/2002/04.18/09-tummo.html<br /><br />"In a monastery in northern India, thinly clad Tibetan monks sat quietly in a room where the temperature was a chilly 40 degrees Fahrenheit. Using a yoga technique known as g Tum-mo, they entered a state of deep meditation. Other monks soaked 3-by-6-foot sheets in cold water (49 degrees) and placed them over the meditators' shoulders. For untrained people, such frigid wrappings would produce uncontrolled shivering."<br /><br />All the best and...<br />Happy New Year!!Jaradhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07554788909269193326noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5842932455093396534.post-55544785276661675292011-05-19T07:47:04.735-06:002011-05-19T07:47:04.735-06:00Kingfillins:
I did some research on Daniel Reid a...Kingfillins:<br /><br />I did some research on Daniel Reid and what I saw didn't inspire a lot of confidence. I also did some research on "charged air", and it appears to me that there is a lot of misinformation floating around about the nature of ions in the air----fostered by people who have a financial interest in selling stuff.<br /><br />I simply do not believe that there are any scientific studies that support the "New Age" understanding of qi. I've come to this conclusion by reading critiques of various so-called "scientific" studies. After a point, I simply don't want to waste my time investigating one more flake. <br /><br />More to the point, I've studied meditation, internal alchemy and Daoism very intensively for 30 years. It is my belief---as a result of this study---that it is perfectly possible to be a sincere Daoist and avoid believing in all sorts of New Age nonsense. <br /><br />This isn't to say that there are no Chinese Daoists who are firmly attached to this nonsense. I just mean that it is incidental to the tradition, not essential. <br /><br />I wish you well on your journey.The Cloudwalking Owlhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12753861683491740903noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5842932455093396534.post-10498825244044852062011-05-16T18:25:16.177-06:002011-05-16T18:25:16.177-06:00If you read what Daniel Reid has to say about Chi ...If you read what Daniel Reid has to say about Chi you would realise that the idea of Chi is actually grounded in provable science. When we consider that the air we breath can be positively or negatively charged we must consider the effects that this air quality will have when and how we breath it. Showing videos of frauds proves nothing other than there are frauds out there. Stretching the body combined with breathing negatively charged air alone will have profound health benefits. This is called Chi Gong, or Tai Chi and is a well documented fact.<br /><br />Whats more we have this study...Kingfillinsnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5842932455093396534.post-18697481269930415412011-01-18T11:27:55.417-06:002011-01-18T11:27:55.417-06:00Great post. Sometimes I think it's helpful to ...Great post. Sometimes I think it's helpful to talk about this in terms of "thinking-mind" and "body-mind", which are both "mind" or "psyche". Our body-mind seems to be where habitual reactions are stored. When we respond to feelings in a certain way, we are then more likely to respond that way again. Learning to feel the energy of feeling without reacting results in the kinds of bodily responses you're talking about. It's as if the body responds in a certain way as we release old patterns in favor of openness to experience. It certain has an energetic feeling to it, which is why I think the "qi" idea came about in the first place.<br /><br />Though, I think it's important to note that science is the mythology of our time. It's our way of using language to explain experience. Over time this language becomes more and more refined, but it is likely to change again. Good to hold it all lightly, I suppose.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5842932455093396534.post-59273928201900708102010-12-26T16:26:50.957-06:002010-12-26T16:26:50.957-06:00I think we're on the same page.I think we're on the same page.baroness radonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14593108634484542286noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5842932455093396534.post-76371844951606407632010-12-25T12:34:07.669-06:002010-12-25T12:34:07.669-06:00This isn't my best post, but what I'm tryi...This isn't my best post, but what I'm trying to get at is that I think that "qi" is both a metaphor and a reality. The language that we use gets in the way, as does our sort of "ur-philosophy" about how the body/mind connection works.<br /><br />We aren't just brains, we are also bodies. And those bodies think too. So I suppose what I'm saying is that our experience of "qi" is our experience of complex hormonal feedback mechanisms. Like the reactions between little Bart's hormones when he has his heart ripped out by his friend. <br /><br />Feeling qi is learning the Dao of the heart/mind.The Cloudwalking Owlhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12753861683491740903noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5842932455093396534.post-11179978935053642852010-12-24T21:21:51.017-06:002010-12-24T21:21:51.017-06:00References to the microcosmic orbit--the circulati...References to the microcosmic orbit--the circulation of qi-- go pretty far back in the Quanzhen School, and Mantak Chia has exploited them pretty profitably. Personally I find him annoying, but historically, there's something there. It's all in "The Secret of the Golden Flower" and Sun Bu-er, hardly New Age, although I can see the appeal.<br /><br />On the inevitable other hand, my teacher of these practices said, "It's all metaphor." And speaking of which, time to begin my annual viewing of "Polar Express."baroness radonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14593108634484542286noreply@blogger.com